Modern requirements for occupational risk assessment at gold mining sites

Russia is currently in the process of modernizing its legislation, primarily in the areas of occupational safety and health, industrial safety and emergency safety, which concerns the management system for occupational and industrial safety on a state level. The aim of the modernization is to make a transition from the previous inefficient system to the modern one. The old system focuses on health compensation, medical and social assistance to the employees suffering work injuries and occupational risks, while the new system is based on a preventive approach that presupposes continuous improvement of the working conditions, industrial safety enhancement, development of a safe working behavior culture, and creation of a risk-management system. The purpose of the article is to analyze the occupational safety and health management innovations encouraging the employers to implement risk assessment and risk management, and to evaluate the occupational risks in gold mining processes. The authors have examined the modern procedures of risk assessment, evaluated the occupational risks for the gold mines of the Bodaibo district, Irkutsk region, analyzed the risks by two methods and identified high-risk professions. Possible reasons for the incompliance of the physical factors of the gold miners’ working environment with the claimed requirements have been analyzed. The investigated professions are classified as high- and middle-risk ones. The detailed study of the drilling-and-blasting site has concluded that the mechanical hazards caused by the rock fragmentation, dust, or noise are unacceptable. Thus, the priority measures on improving the working conditions should focus on eliminating these adverse factors.